Billions of times during 2012, Americans did something voluntarily that they dislike doing when they don’t have the choice: watch a commercial.
The YouTube division of Google has released its annual list of the Top 20 commercials watched on YouTube. As usual, the list, which came out Thursday morning, is an eclectic mix of spots, many from so-called event TV programs like the Super Bowl and others that began as online video clips.
Whatever the origin of the commercials, once again consumers demonstrated that they will gladly watch a commercial if it is their choice to do so.
The list, called the YouTube 2012 Ads Leaderboard, underscores that point with the subheading, “Ads People Choose.”
The list was compiled, according to YouTube, using a combination of factors that signaled viewer choice, including number of views and the view rate, how much of the spot the viewers decided to watch.
Of the 20 commercials, Old Spice, sold by Procter Gamble, had the most, four, followed by Nike and Volkswagen, with two apiece.
The automotive category dominated the Top 20, taking eight slots — nine if you count the Hot Wheels miniature cars sold by Mattel.
Among the commercials on the list that were first broadcast in February, during Super Bowl XLVI, were one of the two Volkswagen ads, along with spots for Honda, Audi, Toyota and Chevrolet. The much-discussed Chrysler commercial featuring Clint Eastwood, which appeared during halftime of the game, also made the list. (The other Volkswagen spot on the list was Super Bowl-related, serving as a teaser for the brand’s Super Bowl commercial.)
“My Time Is Now,” a Nike soccer commercial for the 2012 European Football Championship, known as Euro 2012, was tops on the leader board, with almost 20.9 million views.
A Pepsi Max spot that began online, with the basketball star Kyrie Irving as an elderly “Uncle Drew,” was No. 2, with 17.8 million, followed by a Volkswagen Super Bowl teaser spot, with 17.7 million; a spot for the Samsung Galaxy S III sold by Samsung Mobile USA, with 16.9 million; and the Honda Super Bowl commercial, paying tribute to “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” with 16.3 million.
Of the 20 commercials, the agency with the most creative work on the list was Wieden Kennedy, with seven, for Nike, Chrysler and Old Spice.
Wieden Kennedy tied with Starcom for the most media work; each had four spots on the list. (One of Starcom’s four commercials, for Hot Wheels, was a shared media assignment with 360i.)
The YouTube list is one of several coming out this week as part of the usual end-of-year reckoning for marketing, media and advertising.
The TiVo Research and Analytics subsidiary of TiVo issued a report on Thursday that sought to measure the effectiveness of six weeks’ worth of commercials on broadcast television promoting the new series that the networks added to their lineups for the 2012-13 season.
The most effective promotional spots, according to TiVo, were for “Elementary,” an hourlong drama at 10 p.m. Eastern time Thursdays on CBS.
Based on data from the TiVo PowerWatch ratings service, gathered from a panel of 45,000 TiVo subscribers, “Elementary” achieved a promotion conversion score of 26.2 percent — that is, viewers watched three on-air spots and then tuned in for the premiere episode of the series.
Of the top five new series in terms of the TiVo promotion conversion rates, three — “Elementary”; No. 2, “Revolution,” on NBC; and No. 3, “Arrow,” on CW — have received orders for the full season.
No. 4 on the list, “The Mindy Project” on Fox, is awaiting word about whether it will be renewed. However, No. 5, “666 Park Avenue,” on ABC, has been canceled.
And two experts in the realm of what is known as viral video are releasing a list of the top 10 branded or sponsored viral videos of 2012. The list is subjective, based on what they consider qualities like authenticity, brevity and “humanity.”
The experts, Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, are behind Eepybird, an early viral phenomenon that was centered on videos showing the explosive results of mixing Diet Coke and Mentos. The list is in conjunction with a new book they wrote, “The Viral Video Manifesto: Why Everything You Know Is Wrong and How to Do What Really Works.”
The top video on the Grobe-Voltz list promoted the TNT cable channel in Belgium with surprise staging of dramatic events on city streets, based on the channel’s theme, “Add more drama.”
No. 2 on their list was the now-familiar video sponsored by Red Bull that chronicled the supersonic free fall of Felix Baumgartner. The video is also a highlight of another look back at 2012 that came out this week, the Google Zeitgeist report.
Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/four-old-spice-ads-make-youtubes-list-of-most-popular-ads-of-2012/?partner=rss&emc=rss